according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.

Israel “aided Hamas directly — the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization),” said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.

Israel’s support for Hamas “was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,” said a former senior CIA official.

But with the triumph of the Khomeini revolution in Iran, with the birth of Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorism in Lebanon, Hamas began to gain in strength in Gaza and then in the West Bank, relying on terror to resist the Israeli occupation.

Israel was certainly funding the group at that time. One U.S. intelligence source who asked not to be named said that not only was Hamas being funded as a “counterweight” to the PLO, Israeli aid had another purpose: “To help identify and channel towards Israeli agents Hamas members who were dangerous terrorists.”

“The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place,” said a U.S. government official who asked not to be named.

“Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with,” he said.

En hou je vast aan uw bretellen:

According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, “the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism.”

“The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer.”

“They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it,” he said.

Een voorbeeldje?

Brig. Gen. Yithaq Segev, the military governor of Gaza, had told U.S. officials he had helped fund “Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and communists,”

Olmert replied, “Netanyahu has gone back to being the same old Netanyahu,” and accused him of directly contributing to strengthening the Hamas movement by releasing the movement’s founder, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, during his term as prime minister.

“Netanyahu established Hamas, gave it life, freed Sheikh Yassin and gave him the opportunity to blossom,” he said, adding that the current political situation in the Palestinian Authority came about “because of the nonsense that was done while Netanyahu was prime minister.”

Israel financed Hamas in its early years as a bulwark against Arafat. This funding could have been continued in the form of cash and/or arms. Now that Hamas is being labelled as a proxy to Iran (without any mention of its Israeli finance) and is on Israel’s doorstep it can be used to prosecute a war on Iran. Things like this don’t just happen. There are some very mentally-sick people out there prepared to do anything for a full-scale war in the Middle East. That’s why Israel was created in the first place.